Lecture about sustainability at Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg

In april we were invited to give a lecture about sustainability and entrepreneurship at the IT Faculty of Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg. We chose to speak about three topics – vision, team and something that we call the 180-degree-principle. Here's a short summary of what we talked about.

Vision
What would a dream society look like, in the areas where you would like to contribute?

Since day one, our vision has been that no food should have to go to waste. The vision has worked as a compass at crossroads but also as a source of drive and enthusiasm. We recommend anyone who wants to contribute to sustainability to define - in writing – a clear vision of the future you see.

Team
How can we build an inspiring team?

Appart from finding collaborators who share your vision, it's important to find people who you work well with on a personal level. That you can trigger sparks of creativity and energize each other. Hopefully these are the people that you will spend the majority of your awaken hours with, so make your choices carefully and cherish the relationships.

The 180-degree-principle
What would happen if we did the opposite?

Entrepreneurship often involves handling continuous streams of problems, large and small. Sometimes we loose sight of the big picture when striving towards conventional solutions to these problems. We have often found ourselves in situations where we have gotten stuck in our own limited thought patterns - until someone cracks a joke and suggests that we try to do the exact opposite. Even if it's not always the right solution it can help you widen your perspective.

I.e. suggesting a hug instead of a confrontation, something that many of the audience members seemed to be able relate to.

We would like to thank Moa Persson, Tora Wilhelmsson, Anna Simmons (Centre for Environment and Sustainability t Chalmers University of Technology and University of Gothenburg), Felix Quist (Göta studentkår IT-sektionen), Martin Ahrin-Larsson (Miljöbron), Omkar Salunke, Svante Bengtsson (Chalmers Students for Sustainability) Mårten Skogh och Ida Larsen (Ingenjörer utan Gränser Chalmers) for a well organized event and for giving us the chance to come and talk to you and all of the environmentally interested students that participated.